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books for adventurous children

Five reasons snakes make the best pets

I love animals. I grew up on a farm with Clydesdale horses in the garden (their grandparents used to be working horses, but these were just “field ornaments”), sheep, Collies (best sheepdogs, of course), and cattle. My best ever party was when my entire class of 5 year olds tried to milk Daisy, the worlds most patient cow! Then when I got older, the cows became cats. This is my cheeky pony – he keeps me on my toes, and makes the worst days all better.

So now we have a collection of animals.

But last week DS went for a sleepover at a friends house. Turns out he has a python in his bedroom. I thought this was a computer coding language. Nope. A snake. Not what you want to find out via whatsapp!

I used to have nightmares about giant snakes attacking the house. I’m pretty sure that scene in Harry Potter with Nagini is based on my dream.

Rest of conversation went like this …

Me: “I’m coming to rescue you!”

DS: “Don’t worry mum, it’s quite safe. It’s only little.”

Me: “30cm?”

DS: “About a metre.”

I asked his friend what having a pet snake was like, and he said it was mostly boring as it slept all day. Well in that case, surely it can party with the hamster in the kitchen at night then?

When DS got home, safely, the next day, we made a list of reasons why a snake is a great pet …

You won’t have to look after the class hamster in the holidays, in case it gets eaten

No barking, caterwauling or hamster wheel squeaking at 2am

Cheaper than a horse. Trust me on this one!

You can pretend you’re in Slytherin even if you got another house in Pottermore. You never know, parseltongue might be a GCSE in the future.

My sister used to have 2 medium sized snakes and I liked handling them and looking after them but never wanted one for myself. They have long life spans and are pretty uninteresting after a week or two. (plus I hated mice in my freezer) I will stick with my dogs and cats 🙂